Writing

So Beth announced that she is writing a book about her friend. I am excited for her, she is a great English person... is that what you would say? well, she is great at English and very question oriented in things, meaning detailed in what she wants to know. In the end I think her book is going to come out great.
Not to outdo her, and I did mean to post this a long time ago, but I always feel like I am bragging when I tell people this, I don't like to feel that way, but I was published. I had a story I wrote way back during my short college stint. My English teacher loved it so much he asked if he could use it as an example to the class from then on out. I gave him permission to use it only for education purposes and he did, for the last 8 years. A few months ago my dad called me and let me know that someone stating to be my college English teacher left a message stating that he wanted to let me know that they used my story in the new English lit manual for BYU-I. I was ecstatic. I had been thinking of an idea for a book for a while and felt that my ideas were not good enough and that my writing would not be accepted by many. This blog does not help... After weeks of an agonizing wait, the package with the BYU study manual came in the mail. It was a trip reading my story in a literature book that would be read by tens of thousands, if not hundreds of thousands. The book is called "I Think" released by the BYU press. I have tried many times to find it through Google, but to no avail.

I will try to keep things updated on here as to how the book writing is coming, along with Beth's book. Although we are opposite in what we are writing about, I think both will come out great.

Cars...

Anyone that knows me knows that I love cars. I am a huge fan of the Ford Mustang. Not that it is "the greatest sports car ever" or any of that fan boy stuff, it is that it is cheap, easy and I cant seem to keep hold of the ones that would make any car enthusiast flutter inside. Lately I fell in love with the classic fastback, although I am still really picky on how it should look. I never liked them because I thought they looked like a whale on the back end, but recently I saw a Boss clone in the new direct to DVD Stargate movie. It was Grabber Orange with black stripes and a black spoiler. It was the Spoiler that set it all off for me. I liked that, I really really liked that. So now I have jumped onto the fastback fandom wagon. Now, here is a list of cars that I hope to one day have in my very large, very clean garage-showroom-fun house:



1970 Mustang Boss 302
1964-1968 Mustang convertible
1970 Mustang GT500/350 Convertible
1965 Falcon Futura 2 door Hardtop
2008 Porsche 911 GT2
2008 Tesla Roadster
2008 Saturn Sky
1963 Corvette Stingray
1999 Plymouth Prowler
2001 Ferrari 350 Modena


Jarret said...

You are missing the following;

Ferrari - Enzo
Bugati - anything
BMW - 2008 700 series

No need to thank me.


Yes in that order, all except the last, anyone has a Modena sitting around I will gladly take it off their hands, no questions asked. Or for the record any one of these cars. Now I know that there are hundreds of thousands of other great cars out there, I have just listed a few of my favorites. If you have a favorite, go ahead, let me know.

Stupid boy...

So I am the first to admit that I have a hard time making or keeping friends. I tend not to keep up with people feeling that they are much like me, all I need is a hello every once in a while and I am good. So when we have people over I tend to get nervous/excited, but not that I feel it heavily inside. It just happens and I tend to throw out really random things, creating connections in my head with random topics to the conversations that are going on at the moment, trying not to let the conversations die. In other words; I become a really big dork. This week proved that all the more as we had several days where there were people that came over, some planned, some not, and I shifted into dork mode. What is really sad is that I realize that this happens, after it has come and gone. I have realized that I am a topper, not by choice, but for some reason I feel like I have to contribute something to the conversation and it has to sound good. I hate that I do that and am trying to work on it. The other thing I realized is that I have lived a fantastic life, I have experienced so much more than the normal person that some of the things I have experienced seem unreal. I remember my Father telling me this when I was younger, and that I should savor it. Of course I did not, but I still lived a wonderful, exciting and extraordinary life. Maybe it happened like that so that an ordinary person could have extraordinary stories. So to all those that know that I have done a topper story, please forgive me. I am learning everyday how to be more social. I tend to think about conversations over and over in my head and think to myself how I destroyed all hope in overcoming my view of myself, and others views of me, in this light with the things I do and say. In other words, I beat myself up a lot over these things, no need for anyone to do it more than I do already.

I will make an end to my public self flogging.

New path

I have decided to blog as others do, on items that I like and think are cool, or even care about, instead of this being an online journal.

To start this off I will let you know a bit about who I am. I am an Apple computers/linux/unix fan. I feel computers are like AC units, they don't work as efficient if you open Windows. I have a love for music, all music that is good (meaning not derogatory, or degrading). I listen to Classical for the most part in my car, and funk/rock/ska any other times. I am an entrepreneur at heart, I cannot stand having limits set on what I can and cannot do, and love to explore new ideas, and revisit old ones. I would love to meet Nichola Tesla, George Massemburg, George Gershwin, Anderson Cooper, anyone who has a visionary mindset and is willing to share it through hard work and perseverance. I love art, paintings, drawings, bright colors strewn across a canvas in careless joy, or dark colors carefully marking the anguish of the artist. I am all for natural resources and remedies. I love my family, and I try to be a man of God. These are some of the things I will get into. If you want, email me on topics you would like to discuss openly, or are too busy to research yourself, I would be happy to look in my spare time.

Bad List

I guess I am on it for a few people due to a decision that I have made with the wife. We have decided to look for a place in Idaho, near Boise. We talked it over and moving to Eastern Idaho would prove to be too cold and too small for Beth to handle, so we talked it over and Caldwell area (near my brother Dan) seems more along the lines we like. It is still a 2.5 hour flight form Boise to Phoenix, and still relatively cheap with certain airlines.
I understand and appreciate the pain my wife is going through, leaving both her family and the place she grew up in. I love her so much for putting up with me and for taking care of my boy. I know that she will be a great mother no matter where we live. I also love her family for putting up with me and all the hassle I come with.
Her parents have been so loving and open armed to me and made me feel as much at home as one can. Her mother has done so much for us, she has done so much for me too. She created a scrapbook that covered the basics of my life and some parts that I had forgotten. She had gone through so much trouble to get all the info that she did for that too, I was amazed at how much it covered. She then went to the extent of making a book of my families history, something that my grandmother did on my fathers side, but not much has been done on my mothers side., but she went ahead and did it. My father-in-law is great too, he spent a whole year building our enclosure for our back porch. He used all the time that he had off to do it, he would come over early in the morning and stay late on it, even when I could not be there to help.
I guess it comes down to this, we all have something great in the family that is around us. I know how much they mean to my wife, and to me, and I do feel pain in the thought of them not being able to be so involved in my sons growth, but I feel the same when I think of my parents. I know that my parents will not be the same as Beth's, that they show their love differently, but I know that no matter what they will be there for us, both my parents and my in-laws.

Feelings Buried

So this last week at church one of the speakers was talking and I cannot recall about but I know that something triggered me to think of the year 1987. That was the year that my parents got divorce. That was 21 years ago. Whenever I have thought of it in the past I always remember the time that I first found out that they were separating, I was in the Pontiac wagon we had, it had pealing wood-like vinyl siding instead of a paint job. I was sitting in the back seat and my mom was driving us to the baby sitters just outside of the small town I grew up in. We had just passed the local airstrip, a landmark that signified the edge of town in my mind. My brothers were talking about what a divorce was and asked me if I knew what it was, I said yes. I then stated it was the same thing that one of the kids I knew at schools parents got. Besides a brief day spent in the park in Rexburg because my oldest brother went in to court with my parents, that was the last I ever remembered of the divorce. That was until Sunday in church. All these feelings started to flood into me, feelings I did not remember having. Along with them came a frenzied amount of moments. I remembered how much it had hurt me and how I had prayed for years to get my parents back together, all the way till right before I was 19. I remembered all the moments that I thought to myself, "why?" It overcame me to the point of tears. 21 years later, sitting in a church holding my son, I had tears. I could usually always remember what it is I saw and heard throughout the whole experience, but never really tried to recall the feelings, I guess that I always thought I knew what they were from just recalling what I saw.
I keep wanting to say that I recalled the movie, because that is how i see it in my head.
I then went on to remember some of the things I went through with my step-father. What my brothers went through, and my mother too. I really wish that had written this all sooner because I have a hard time recalling all that I saw in my head and felt as I went through this. It seems as though I have buried the feelings all over again. I guess next time I will do better to get them down faster.
I went on to remember how much I wanted my mom and dad back together but that I did not want to lose my step-mom. She has been so much to me in my life. All that she has influenced in me and how she has molded me. I would have to say that a lot of the better side of me is from her. Maybe the best way to put it is that she took what my mother had already given me and made it shine more. Both my mothers have been very influential on my life, I would not trade one out for the other. So as I end, I know that there was a lot of things that were good, even great, that came from the divorce. I know I was hurt and that my brothers were all hurt too. Some may have been more than I know, we all turned out pretty decent. I feel that in the end it is up to me to overcome and let go of what happened, that I cannot depend on others to do that for me. Sometimes I feel that there are those that think that it is others fault for hurting them, I believe that we have to let them hurt us to be hurt. Maybe I heard that somewhere and it actually stuck. This whole time I could have seen the brighter side and could have let it all go but I did not and it is harder than ever to let go. I have carried these rocks so long I have almost grown fond of them tiring me out and slowing me down. I want to let it all go, but I really have no idea how to, or how to recall those feelings so that I might get it al out. Then maybe the next time I will not only write it all down when it comes but get it all out. Maybe then I might be able to ponder just a bit longer on it to see how it has affected the rest of my life. As of now I don't know. As of now they are not bothering me so I don't focus on them. It is as if I don't care that they are there, yet I write...

I am a huge fan of the Tesla Motors car company, so I just wanted to share this with everyone.

Watch it here.